One of our trusty ninjas just hit us up with a couple details on some of Verizon’s upcoming products and product offerings. First off.. Netbooks. We’ve been told that Verizon Wireless will 100% start selling Netbooks in stores around May of this year. The first one looks to be a 10-inch HP Mini which should go for $99 on a 2-year agreement (with BroadbandAccess plan). On a related note, we’ve been told that AT&T is in the process of setting this up as well (selling Netbooks in stores).

The hate-it-or-love-it Verizon Hub home phone will be getting an upgrade to enable streaming radio on or around February 22nd.

There’s a new feature for Verizon Wireless subscribers rolling out called Media Manager. What we’re told this does is enable you to backup all your ringtones, games, and phone content to one location for free as long as you use the My Account feature online. Basically think of it as a free backup assistant, rumored to be rolling out momentarily.

The BlackBerry Apex (BlackBerry 8230) we’re told was removed from Verizon’s data devices road map. Our contact doesn’t know why or what it possibly means, but he said it either means it is coming very soon (likely) or not being released at all (unlikely).

Finally, the BlackBerry Niagara. We showed you the first photo of it, and it turns out it is pretty much spot on. We do have some more information, however. You can definitely think of it as a cross between the Bold and the Curve 8900. It’s bigger than the Curve, but smaller than the Bold. It has the same 480×320 screen resolution as the bold, and thankfully we’re told rocks the same processor as well (624MHz CPU). Lastly, it runs the 4.6 OS but you didn’t really need us to tell you that. In terms of release date, you’re going to be a little disappointed — we don’t have one. We were originally told by our original tipster that the Niagara would launch in May of ’09 on Verizon, and darn it, that looks pretty accurate. When we have something confirmed, we’ll obviously share that news. Below is a recap of the information we reported on the Niagara when we broke the news:

HP recently launched the Mini 1000 and now it has added integrated WWAN as an option during checkout. Users can select between an EV-DO modem for Verizon Wireless or an HSPA modem for AT&T. The integrated WWAN option will cost you an additional $199 for the modem and another $50 for 1GB RAM and a 60GB hard drive which are requirements for purchasing the integrated modem. All these extras bring the total cost of a 3G enabled Mini 1000 to a whopping $650. This is in stark contrast to the Dell Mini 9, which offers an AT&T subsidized 3g option that drives up the cost of the netbook by a mere $5 when you sign up for an AT&T data plan. If you just can’t resist the Mini 1000 and want integrated 3G without the additional cost, you can always crack open the case and install your own 3G card. Unfortunately, HP has locked the Bios so you can’t just pop in a card and have it work. You need to do some fancy hacking to get around the Bios lock but it reportedly is possible.

Dell announced on Thursday that it is adding two new colors and three new Tristan Eaton designs to its Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12 netbooks. The new colors include Cherry Red and the very feminine Pretty Pink. Dell also licensed the work of Tristan Eaton, avant garde toy designer, to produce three exclusive images that will adorn the outer casings of the Inspiron Minis. Eaton’s designs include “The Muse,” a blend of colorful patterns and the female form as well as “Stickers 1” and “Stickers 2,” which emulate the landscape of stickers you might see covering the bottom of a skateboard, the walls of CBGB’s or a lamppost in New York. Both “The Muse” and “Stickers 1″ will be available in two color schemes. Hit the jump for a quick look at the colorful new Minis.

Hmm, that’s a pretty sweet looking pen in that pic. Is it a Mont or a… Oh sorry, we got sidetracked. You know how it is – all these netbooks coming out and well, it’s getting a tiny bit hard to care. Tiny ones are cool as long as they pack integrated cellular radios, thin ones are instantly compared with the MacBook Air with Mac-lovers scoffing and PC-lovers insisting. Anyway, Dell just announced the second addition to it’s Mini lineup, the Inspiron Mini 12. It’s not quite as mini as the Mini 9 but it’s still pretty mini, with a profile that tapers from 24 mm to 21 mm. Yup, that instantly plops it into the category of laptops and netbooks that are compared to the MacBook Air. We’re going to go ahead and skip that part if it’s ok with you – on to the spec highlights:

All in all, it’s a pretty solid offering from Dell and the exposure-factor alone should help the Mini 12 find its way into plenty of homes throughout the country this holiday season. In terms of timing, the Mini 12 will drop in Japan first before eventually finding its way to the US late in November. Pricing will start at $600.

If you own a Dell Inspiron Mini with Ubuntu and paid extra to upgrade your hard drive from the stock 4 GB to an 8 GB or 16 GB SSD drive, you better get sudo fdisk-ing and check your partition sizes. A savvy Inspiron Mini owner noticed his 16 GB SSD was only showing up as a 4 GB inside Ubuntu. A quick check of the bios revealed that the physical drive was indeed 16 GB leaving him to wonder what happened to that extra 12 GB. He was not the only one to notice this discrepancy and bring it to the attention of Dell. It did not take Dell very long to admit there was an error in their manufacturing process. Turns out their technicians were using a disk image for a 4 GB install on each and every one of their Ubuntu machines. In other words, all 8 GB and 16 GB machines were partitioned as 4 GB machines. Oops! As of Friday, Dell announced that each and every new Ubuntu system will be installed with the correct partition size. Yay! Dell has kindly offered a solution to the problem if you are one of the unlucky early adopters: use your system restore disk to repartition your disk and re-install Ubuntu. If you are a Linux junkie, then you can attempt to resize your partition with gParted and skip the whole re-installation hassle process. Whichever method you choose be sure to backup your data first, ok? Wouldn’t want anyone to lose the one and only picture of dear Aunt Ethel at her 100th birthday celebration in the backyard of her beautiful Victorian house on the day before it was unexpectedly destroyed by a hurricane. Priceless.

Dell’s upcoming Mini Inspiron is a nod to the relevance of the Eee space as Dell has apparently realized that they need be playing in kiddie pool. Its first entry, a sub-$500 UMPC, is presumably Windows-powered and looks to be a solid entry into the space, barring the candy coated shell. Specs are a bit scarce at the moment but we can all recognize Dell knows how to build a computer so this will likely be workable. For the time being, all we can tell you is what’s on the outside. Three USB ports, an ethernet port, VGA out and a card reader. Exact size is unknown as well but Dell press shots show that it’s just a bit wider than a standard pencil. Translation: that’s one tiny keyboard! For the teeny PC market this will surely make a splash however, and it’ll match your lip stick.